I have been using InstaDMG for a long time to make my Max OS X 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard images. It always worked without flaw until recently. A technician mentioned to me that /Applications/Mail.app would not launch on my 10.5.8 image. I later also had some issues with the Finder that I just couldn't figure out. On an email list someone said they saw the same thing on 10.6 with the following error;
You have Mail version 4.0 (1075/1077). It can't be used on Mac OS X Version 10.6.2 (Build 10C540)
So what follows is how I addressed this issue. The issue has to do with relocation which is a relatively new feature in OS X's installer system. Basically the 10.5.8 or 10.6.2 update runs and instead of it updating Mail.app (and many other things) on the InstaDMG drive, it updates it on the drive you are booted from. I have an enhancement on file with Apple to add a switch to installer so that it will ignore relocation if you use the switch. Until then you will have to do the following to every Apple package you download to put in your OS updates folder. If you are reading this and don't know what InstaDMG is then most likely you can fix your problem by running either the 10.5.8 or 10.6.2 combo updates available on Apple's website in the Downloads area.
First you need to be able to edit Flat Packages. These are the new packages where you can no longer Right Click -> Show Package Contents anymore. If you are working with an older package then you can skip this step and just Right Click -> Show Package Contents.
- Install XCode on your workstation
- Launch /Developer/Applications/Utilities/PackageMaker
- Under the Edit menu pick to Open Flat Package Editor
- Once in Flat Package Editor you can File -> Open the Package to be edited.
At this point you should see something like this;
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- Now you will drag the file PackageInfo to your desktop and open it in TextEdit and make the following changes;
- Change relocatable="true" in the 2nd line to relocatable="false"
- Delete everything from <deferred-install until </deferred-install> since that whole section is not needed.
- Delete everything from <relocate search-id until the very last </relocate> so that nothing is marked for relocation.
- Delete everything from <locator> until </locator> to strip the code that searches for relocatable stuff.
- Now highlight PackageInfo in Flat Package Editor and click the delete icon.
- Drag your modified PackageInfo in to the same place the previous one was.
- Save the modified package with File -> Save
- On the dialog that will appear you need to pick "No Identity" which will strip the package of it's certificate, but this does not matter. If you have your own certificate you could use that, but it's really not needed for this.
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- Next I close Flat Package Editor, re-launch it, re-open the edited package, and drag the PackageInfo file to my desktop again and check it in TextEdit to make sure my edits stayed. I do this because I have seen Flat Package Editor not include my changed file. Until the very latest Xcode I also had issues with Flat Package Editor quitting mid-save as well.
You are now done. The edited package will not know about relocation. If you include it in your InstaDMG workflow you should not have any problems that relate to file relocation. I now do this to every Apple PKG I work with for InstaDMG.